


the illusion of hope

by heylifeitsemily



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 22:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11678709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylifeitsemily/pseuds/heylifeitsemily
Summary: The woman is a force to be reckoned with, staff twirling and casting spells at an almost unimaginable pace as she stands above him, sweat along her brow. It comes as a shock when he realizes, perhaps later than he should, that she’s protecting him.With no concern for who he is.Orsino almost laughs. No one so unconditionally benevolent belongs in Kirkwall.





	the illusion of hope

**Author's Note:**

> Short snippets of their relationship, not entirely sequential, unrelated from one to the next.

The ground shakes under their footfalls, heavy and imposing, their sheer physical force threatening the standing of the veil. The voices beyond it grow louder.

Or perhaps his control is slipping away as death draws nearer, the Fade closer and kinder than Orsino remembers. It is comfortable, a reprieve, a haven, and he cannot give into it. He will not.

A rock hurtles towards the Qunari looming over him and the creature flies backwards with the impetus, crashing into the adjacent wall. He pushes himself up to see the source, his elbows buckling, and he hits the ground with a wheezing gasp.

“Stay down,” a woman’s voice calls, but whether to him or the newly felled Qunari, he does not know.

Soon the voice stands near him, calling out to her companions, but his vision is blurry at best as he tries to follow her movements, and the fighting is in full swing before he can take stock of his surroundings and the new combatants.

The woman is a force to be reckoned with, staff twirling and casting spells at an almost unimaginable pace as she stands above him, sweat along her brow. It comes as a shock when he realizes, perhaps later than he should, that she’s protecting him.

With no concern for who he is.

Orsino almost laughs. No one so unconditionally benevolent belongs in Kirkwall.

When the dust settles and the last Qunari falls mid-breath, the thud of its corpse against Hightown’s stone another facet of memory that will haunt him as he sleeps this night – _if_ he makes it through the night – she moves from standing over him to heaving him to his feet, brushing dust off his shoulders and roughly taking his chin to inspect his temples, a satisfied hum leaving her when she finds no wounds.

Before he can thank her for her aid or chastise her jarring treatment, her hand is flat against his chest, pressed over his heart and emitting a blue pulse, the glow circulating through his bloodstream and knitting broken vessels together as it moves. The dryness of his throat lessens, the bruising ache of his ribs silenced as the steady thrum of her magic heals his multitude of injuries.

It is a remarkable display of spirit healing, the rejuvenation he experiences the best he has felt in decades.

“Many thanks,” he says, his voice weaker than he intended. He blinks rapidly to banish the last tresses of drowsiness clouding his mind and breathes deeply, the tang of blood and carnage mingling with the salt of the neighbouring waters, and he can only hope that Meredith does not inhale the same taint in the air and blame it on his brethren.

His rescuer comes into focus piece by piece, first sharp blue eyes, then a stripe of red paint, black dishevelled hair, a long nose, a narrow jaw. Her lips – full, chapped, tinged a dark red – purse as she takes him in, then part with something akin to recognition. Her gaze darts beyond his shoulder before meeting his again, and her delicate brows are furrowed, wintry blue eyes softening.

“First Enchanter,” she nods. “You’ve fared better than most.”

“The others?” His stomach rises to his throat. “Surely they cannot all be – “

“I’m sorry,” she interrupts, gaze turned to the courtyard. For barely a moment, he stares at the slope of her nose and the jut of her cheekbones, waiting for her face to light up with hope and for her to rush forward towards a survivor, any survivor, just one. He knows it will not happen.

A small infinity passes before he swivels his head and tallies the deceased, before he falls to his knees and suppresses the fresh wave of nausea in turning over the body of an apprentice – Everett, a promising young force mage that never missed a lesson, was never once late. His brown eyes stare at the night sky’s stars unseeing.

“Gone,” Orsino whispers.

His unnamed saviour crouches beside him.

“I told them to run,” he says without knowing why. Maybe to absolve himself from blame, to escape the weight of another senseless death on his conscience, innocent blood spilt under his watch. Or to prove to this stranger that he did all he could.

Her calloused hand comes to rest lightly on his shoulder, the warmth of her palm travelling through layers and layers of fabric. She positively _burns_ with carefully harnessed energy. The blaze of her power contrasts so starkly with the murmur of her words, so soft only he can hear.

“Ashes we were, and ashes we become. Maker, give this young man a place at your side. Let us take comfort in the peace he has found in eternity.”

“And what peace is there to be found?” He demands, more harshly than her simple kindness warrants.

Something of a sardonic smile quirks up the corner of her lip.

“Not much.” She stands, extending a hand towards him. “I always figured it was better than the alternative though.”

He grasps her forearm, more grateful for the help than she knows. He rises as gracefully as he can manage, idly taking note of the small disparity in height, his eyeline matching her bloodied forehead.

Had she fought her way here? If so, her injuries must be just as extensive as his, if not more so.

“Hawke,” a man’s voice calls from Orsino’s left, and in the space of two long strides, spindly fingers curl around her bicep and turn her away from him. The man – the mage, judging by the white birch wood staff on his back – brings his other hand to her chin, gently tipping it up and examining her in a manner reminiscent to her earlier scrutiny, though with a far softer touch.

“ _Anders_ ,” she returns, removing his hands with rolled eyes and an exasperated smile that has the man in question frowning. It is in her teasing tone that Orsino realizes who stands before him.

Hawke, aspiring refugee from Ferelden, ally to the mage underground. She is… smaller, than he expected. Not nearly as intimidating as the harried snippets of description from the Circle’s young mages had led him to believe. Now that she is but a foot away, teetering on her toes as she pushes the taller mage and his fretting hands off of her, she isn’t threatening in the slightest.

Appearances are deceiving, he knows. The aura of the Fade fuses and dashes around her. Orsino watches its flame in the spark of her eye.

“Serrah Hawke,” he greets. “You and your companions should find shelter. As you well know, the streets are not safe right now.”

“With all due respect, First Enchanter,” she says, having successfully batted Anders’s well-meaning hands away, “I think you would agree that the streets are much better off with me to defend them.”

“We need to keep moving, Hawke,” a Starkhaven accent calls from several feet away, its owner not facing them but instead turned towards the previous clearing, bow in hand and watching for stragglers.

“That we do,” she agrees. “First Enchanter, will you be alright to walk?”

“Towards the Qunari stronghold or away from it?”

“Whichever you prefer,” she says, a humorous lilt in her voice. It disappears in her next words as she reaches towards him, hand stopping half way through the motion and retracting to her side, fingers twitching to curl around her staff. “You have more than done your part, though. No one would find fault if you chose to retreat and watch over what remains of the Circle.”

Orsino is struck by the sincerity of it, but more so by an earlier thought, one that will repeat itself often in the years to follow.

No one so unconditionally benevolent belongs in Kirkwall.

Of course, he will not heed her suggestion, not when the threat remains. He opens his mouth to tell her as much, certain he is only seeing things when her eyes flit to his lips to follow the motion, but he is cut off by shrill and all too familiar derision.

“First Enchanter Orsino. You survive.” Meredith’s armor glints menacingly in the moonlight, the thrall of Templars at her back somehow mocking him, her men standing while his lay motionless at their feet.

“Your relief overwhelms me, Knight Commander,” he snipes. Hawke stands resolutely at his side, the oddest sensation of being protected prickling at his chest.

“There is no time for talk,” Meredith says in characteristic reprimand. “We must strike back, before it’s too late.”

“And who will lead us into this battle?” He should not taunt her at a time like this, when they are both nearing the limit of their patience, but the temptation is easily given into when his robes are splattered with blood and renewed rage courses steadily through his veins. “ _You?_ ”

Her mouth twists into an inelegant snarl, as animal-like as the beasts she so often compares her charges to.

“I will fight to defend this city as I have always done!”

“To control it, you mean!” Hawke does not flinch away as he gesticulates, arms darting out with closed fists. “I won’t have our lives tossed to the flames to feed your vanity!”

Hawke takes another step closer to him, her shoulder nearly brushing his arm.

“The important thing is that we get inside, not this bickering. We must work together,” she declares.

“Then,” Orsino says, unsure whether he is goading Meredith further or truly supportive of the idea, “perhaps _you_ should be leading us, Serrah Hawke.”

Meredith scoffs. “She isn’t even of this city!”

“Neither am I,” he reminds. “Yet I didn’t hear you complaining moments ago when both of us were fighting to defend it.” He raises an eyebrow, waiting for her rebuttal.

None comes.

“If skipping across the lake back to Ferelden isn’t an option,” Hawke says, her companion from Starkhaven coughing to hide a chuckle at the quip, “then our priority is finding out what they’re doing in there. We have to get inside the Keep.”

She falls into hurried whispers with her companions as they approach the entrance, the elven warrior arguing with her over strategy while Anders forgoes the discussion in favour of glaring openly at the Knight Commander.

Orsino falls into step beside her as they ascend the stairs, not missing the appraising glance she sweeps over him.

“Are you certain you are alright?” She asks.

He smiles in spite of himself.

“Do you think me fragile in my old age?”

“Not at all.” The twinkling in her eyes is out of place with the night’s events, but surely he is misinterpreting it. “I’m just eager to watch you work.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be putting too much effort into making anything worthy of spectacle.”

“Nonsense,” Hawke says, turning a corner with him. “It’ll be rewarding enough to see a master at his craft. I’m curious as to the limitations of a senior circle mage’s magical ability.”

“You never saw such displays in the Circle?” He supposes offensive magic is rarely taught in a classroom setting let alone a hands-on capacity, and the texts detailing it are only available to enchanters of a certain rank or higher.

“I was never in the Circle.”

Orsino struggles to comprehend the notion of a mage in Kirkwall untouched by the Circle in its entirety as they come upon the gates of the Keep.

There are too many Qunari for a frontal assault, and too much blood has been shed this night to warrant the number of men it would take to overpower such a defensive force, not to mention the poor souls trapped within.

Meredith, as he has come to expect over their years as colleagues, has formed the exact opposite opinion.

“This is the only way in,” she states. “We must attack them now before their numbers grow. No doubt more are approaching from the docks as we speak.”

“Are you mad?” He hisses. “We need a distraction, not a death sentence for the hostages inside!”

“Orsino’s right,” Hawke says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “A direct attack risks too much, especially with as small a fighting force as we have.” She turns to him, lips pulled thin. “What do you have in mind?”

“We’ll need to get you inside,” he says, holding her gaze as he passes, “and catch up as soon as we can.”

“And _how_ do you plan to do that, exactly?” Meredith’s condescension knows no bounds.

Luckily, Orsino has become rather proficient at matching her contempt, volley for volley.

“Have confidence, Knight Commander.”

He catches a glimpse of Meredith’s scowl and Hawke’s grin as he marches towards the gate, staff lifted from his back and spun with more pageantry than necessary, perhaps to give her the spectacle she sought after. He breaks into a run shortly thereafter, stopping fifty or so feet off from the Qunari line. He has caught their attention.

“You will not conquer this city without a fight!”

The Qunari response is unintelligible to him, but the gist of the order is clear. They are unable to follow it as Orsino’s fire wreathes them, their screams of war turning to those of agony before dying off abruptly, bodies burned to crisps. He steps forward, nodding imperceptibly to Hawke as she sneaks past in the shadows, her companions in tow. He takes a silent pride in the impressed look she sports, and something much warmer and friendlier at the thumbs up she gives.

The Qun charge. He backs away slowly, drawing them further from the entrance and pelting the onslaught with flame after flame. Meredith is soon at his side and slashing at those who make it past the acceptable perimeter for his attacks, and Hawke disappears into the grand doors, her companions in tow.

Minutes later, the last Qunari stationed outside falls, and there is no news from within. Orsino is pushing open the door when a young pirate sidles past the Templar guard, assuring them that “everything will be handled in ten minutes, fifteen tops. Just wait out here.” She stops in the doorway, throwing him a wink before sparing a glance at the charred Qunari corpses.

“Hawke’s handiwork?”

“Mine, actually,” he corrects.

“Splendid job. Glad I didn’t have to do it myself. Hawke’s inside, isn’t she?” Despite never having spoken to her, Orsino knows that her voice is _off_ , that it is usually lent to a slow and languid carress of each syllable instead of its manner now, clipped and brusque.

“Yes.”

The woman adjusts her grip on the tome tucked under her arm.

“Of course she is. Bloody hero, that one. I’ll be sure to tell her how you took care of these Qunari if things go south. She loves a mage who’s good with his hands.”

She slides past him, and Orsino is about to follow suit when a new wave of Qunari, no doubt tailing the pirate, appears at the gates. The door shuts behind him as a spear misses its target, embedding itself in the wood not half a foot away from his head.

_Battle begins anew._

No less than twenty minutes later do they throw open the doors to the Keep’s inner sanctum to find the sound of cheering, the Arishok lifeless at Hawke’s feet and Hawke herself leaning on her staff to stay upright, beaten half to death, and blood, mostly her own, pooling at her feet.

She staggers towards them slowly, each step seemingly agony and her robe no doubt concealing the worst of her newly won wealth of pains. She leaves a trail of red in her wake.

His legs move towards her unbidden before Meredith’s gauntleted hand grabs his shoulder, staying him.

“Is it over?” She demands.

“Yes,” Hawke croaks, eyes glazed over in pain as Meredith declares her Kirkwall’s Champion. Through no small feat of will power does she stay standing until the crowds disperse and Orsino himself is ushered back to the Circle. He glances over his shoulder with no goal in mind, but in the steadily closing gap between the two doors, he watches Hawke down a lyrium potion and send a familiar blue pulse flickering over her skin. She falls with the effort, Anders catching her, and it is all Orsino is permitted to see before the doors shut altogether.

This will not be the last he hears of Ser Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall. Orsino is certain of it.

* * *

Kirkwall’s rain is fabled to be nothing less than torrential, and it lives up to its reputation on this night, hammering down on Orsino’s shoulders as he stumbles down the Wounded Coast’s slick paths. His hood manages to shield his eyes, but it has become just as drenched as the fauna around him. He wouldn’t be surprised if the escaped apprentices he searched for drowned in the caves they sought refuge in.

He would be mournful. But not surprised.

Figures stumble from behind a bush, one huddled over the other. Both hold staffs.

“Step no further!” The taller one shouts, almost inaudible with the din of the rain. “Show yourself!”  
  
“Steady your hand.” Orsino’s hands raise at a deliberately slow pace so as not to alarm his accusers, peeling back his hood with no small amount of distaste at the cascading rainwater, showering his face and soaking him in seconds.

“First Enchanter,” the figure says, posture straightening in perfunctory formality, the scarlet hood falling to reveal the Champion, blood streaming from a gash on her forehead, war paint smudged and dripping off the tip of her nose, and lips blue with the cold. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. Do you roam the coast during thunderstorms often?”

“When the mood strikes.”

Her companion hacks out a wet cough, leaning into her side and doubling over. Blood mixes with the puddles at their feet. The Champion’s eyes widen in panic, a flash of blue light flaring from her palm and pressing against their abdomen. The figure shudders, clutching to the back of her neck to ground themselves. He catches a glimpse of bronzed skin and close-cut black hair.

“Think you could help me escort this lovely young woman back to the Circle?” Hawke asks, her airy tone undercut by a growing semblance of dread.

The girl collapses into the Champion’s arms, and it more or less answers the query for him. The Champion scoops her up into her arms, trusting Orsino to guard the pair of them if necessary. His staff is already in hand.

“The last of the apprentices, I take it?” The rain obscures his vision, and he pulls his hood on once more.

“It was a bloodbath. Literally,” the Champion adds. “One of the older ones heard my approach and panicked, and a handful of the others followed suit. The demons and raised dead got to most of them before I could intervene.” Her mouth twists into a grimace. “I should have announced myself and waited for their response instead of barging on in. Stupid mistake.”

Their trek takes on an incline and he trails just behind them, ready to intercede should her steps falter.

“Why were you out here?” She asks.

“I might ask you the same.”  
  
“Well.” They come upon the top of the hill and she halts, turning on her heel to face him. The movement sends a spray of rainwater across the front of his robes, but she pays it no mind. “Isn’t that just a textbook example of deflection.”  
  
Orsino raises an eyebrow, but as seconds pass and she shows no signs of yielding, he acquiesces.

“I was endeavouring to return the apprentices to the Circle before Knight Commander Meredith caught wind of their absence.”  
  
“And if I intended to free them from the Circle’s reach, what do you say to that?”

She is not prideful or defending a challenge to her principles, but rather curious, eyes peering up at him with the promise of judgement, reserved until after he makes his reply. If her support of mage freedoms is a ruse to incriminate him, it is a good one, straddling the line between passionate and duly cautious of repercussion.

“I’d say you are succeeding where I cannot.”

His answer mollifies her, and she nods, the simple gesture spraying more rain onto him. She has the grace to look apologetic this time before resuming her walk.

“Most mages are eager to make allies with each other, regardless of their views on the Circle,” Orsino says, the unspoken query as to her hostility’s origin unanswered for the next twenty paces.

When Hawke speaks, it is with a rehearsed cadence, her words either memorized to the letter or so ingrained in her psyche that it flows without thought.

“Most mages know no life outside of the Circle,” she states. “It is nothing more than a prison, and those within who abide by their jailors simply do not know any better.”

Orsino tilts his head. “And you assume my complacency?”

“Perhaps mistakenly,” she concedes. “But no mage of your status ascends to their position without concessions and compromised principle.” She shifts the girl in her arms with a grunt. “And you did not plan to escape its confines tonight, or any other night.”

“No,” he grants. “But the Circle as an institution cannot be escaped just by fleeing the Knight Commander’s wrath.”

Hawke does not stop to ponder the view physically, but her mind is certainly elsewhere as she loses her footing. Orsino’s hand shoots out to span her lower back, the only thing keeping her from a nasty spill down the cliff face. She nods in thanks.

“Change can be enacted within the realm of legality and without needless bloodshed,” he adds, withdrawing his hand.

Hawke snorts, and he has lost whatever consideration he had gained. “Has it ever?” She makes an effort to stay several steps ahead of them for the next few minutes of their hike, but her shorter strides make it a strain that will tire her unnecessarily. She falls into step beside him, their footsteps almost aligned on the muddy ground beneath.

The rain continues with no sign of diminishing.

“Shall I take her?” Orsino asks as Hawke adjusts her grip on the girl again.  
  
“I can manage. You’ve more experience at dueling magic than I anyway.”

“I find that hard to believe, considering you fought your way out of the Deep Roads, Champion. Not to mention your battle with the Arishok.”

He had intended it as a compliment, but the resulting scowl on her face tells him he has unearthed memories better left forgotten. “I have good luck.” He is curious as to why she denies her own skill, as bountiful and impressive as it is, but knows by the set of her jaw that this line of questioning will only anger her further.

“Why return Elena to the Circle?” He asks instead.

“Is that her name?” A soft smile graces Hawke’s face, and it wipes years off her appearance. “It suits her.” She adjusts Elena once more, looking at her with a fondness that couldn’t possibly come from familiarity. The Champion had a sister, he remembers. A fellow mage.

“I’ve nowhere else to send her,” Hawke admits. “In a group, they could have made it out of the city, but as it is she’s in no position to defend herself from the Templars or anyone else. And as _lenient_ as Meredith has been – or keeps telling me she’s been; she keeps trying to needle favours out of me for all this _leniency_ she’s throwing my way – I have a feeling she won’t be too thrilled if I start harbouring another apostate in my estate.”

“ _Another_ apostate?”

“The count’s up to three now, including myself.” Her grin turns smug for a second before softening again, likely at the thought of her friends. He remembers the blond mage – Anders, she called him – fluttering about her, the way he looked down his nose at the crown of her head when she looked away.

Something twinges in Orsino’s gut, but he can’t put a name to it, and it is gone as quickly as it came.

They are approaching Kirkwall’s cobbled streets when Hawke pauses in her stride, staring off at the horizon and the silhouette of the Gallows along it, men hunched and in chains.  
  
“Which of us should return her?” She asks.

“I shall.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he raises a hand to silence her. “You can appeal to Meredith, yes, but there’s no guarantee she will show mercy. She grows more paranoid by the hour. I can get Elena in unseen and avoid confrontation altogether.”

Hawke presses her lips into a thin line, giving Orsino an appraising once-over before lowering Elena to the ground, gently rousing the girl and waving Orsino over. He takes her into the crook of his arm, pulling her hood over her head before fixing his own. It doesn’t make them much less conspicuous, not with the ornate robes and the way his eyes gleam in the night, but it’s the most he can do for them now.

“The streets are dangerous this time of night,” Hawke warns. “Are you sure you don’t want me to accompany you?”

“I know how to remain out of sight,” Orsino assures her. She frowns, sparing Elena another concerned glance, but nods.

“If you’re certain.” She toys with the hem of her cloak, the fidgeting a rare vulnerability and oddly endearing. “Keep her safe,” she orders.

He nods, squeezing Elena’s shoulder. “Will that be all, Champion?”

“Your eyes are lovely,” she says.

She seems impressed by his lack of visible reaction, but Orsino has spent many a year mastering the suppression of outward emotion, lest the Templars find him in spirits too high or too low, the former garnering despotic countermeasures and the latter providing them a sense of satisfaction he refuses to allow.  
  
The Champion is no Templar, but she remains an enigma to him, and that makes her all the more dangerous.

“Good night, Champion,” he nods.

“Good night, First Enchanter.”

* * *

“First Enchanter!”

The Champion’s voice is as clear as a bell across the Gallows, and today she wears not armor, but pale blue robes, a shade darker than her eyes. She waves him over to Solivitus’s stand as he enters the courtyard.

“I’ve been meaning to come see you,” she says, rummaging through her pack with a determined set to her jaw. “I’ve found some items that might be of use in advanced alchemy, or so I’m told. I’ve no talent for it.” She brightens as she pulls out a jar full of gnarled and spiked roots, presenting it to him with a small bow. “Felandaris, should the gentlemen so desire it.”

“I could make use of – “

“Oh, shut it you,” she interrupts Solivitus, nudging him with her elbow. “Maker knows I’ve supplied your shop better than any smuggler over the years. Spread the wealth, won’t you?”

Orsino takes the jar carefully. “Where did you retrieve it?”

“Ah,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. Her eyes darken near imperceptibly, mouth curving downward just so. “That’s an adventure better left unsaid, if you don’t mind.”

As a scholar, he should press further, and it is clear that Solivitus intends to, the man leaning towards her with an eager glint in his eye. Hawke pulls at her sleeves, angry red burns peeking out from the hem, and Orsino throws Solivitus a warning look before nodding to Hawke. She nods back, that grateful half-smile blossoming on her features. He returns it warmly.

A silence falls as he examines the sample in the jar. “How much would you like for it?” He asks, acceptable price ranges already forming in his head, though some part of him quips that he would give her whatever she liked, no matter the cost.

“What?”

He frowns, brows furrowing. “What shall I pay you?”

“Perish the thought,” she says, pushing the jar further into his chest. “It’s free of charge, First Enchanter. I’m simply giving it to someone who’ll make better use of it than me.”

He shakes his head, holding the jar out to her. “Felandaris is an expensive resource, Champion. I couldn’t just take it from you without some sort of exchange.”

She pushes it back once more. “Nope. I won’t take anything you offer me.” She clasps her hands together and gives a mock beseeching look. “Please, oh please, accept my most gracious gift.”

He looks at the jar again, cradling it a bit reverently in his hands. He would be loath to defy her, considering the rarity of what she presents him. He looks at her to gauge her sincerity once more, noticing something amiss. “Champion – ”

“Oh, do it on behalf of the Circle if you have to, just take the blasted thing.”

He smiles at her terseness. “You’ve already persuaded me. It’s just that you have,” he reaches out to her, surprised when she does not flinch, “spider webs in your hair.” He picks off a strand, letting it float to the Gallows’ floor.

Her nose scrunches in disgust as she combs through her hair haphazardly, ridding herself of the worst of it.

“Giant spiders,” she grouses. “If I never see one again, it’ll be too soon.”

He cannot help but grin at her once more. “I have to be going,” he says, and if her face falls, it must be a trick of the light. “But I must thank you, Champion.”

She laughs. “Champion this, Champion that, will no one ever use my name? It’s not difficult to pronounce!”

He observes her, an unabashed grin on her face, black hair tussled, the smear of paint over her nose a little smudged. Maybe here, in her gentle blue robes and looking at him so unguarded, he can begin to see past the title.

“Thank you, _Champion_ ,” he repeats.

“Mages,” she scoffs, “always so hung up on ceremony.”

* * *

The door to his office is always open as a sign of good will, and to that end Orsino does not notice Hawke until she drops a pile of tomes onto his desk. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch, but the stern expression he adopted fades at the hopeful look on her face. She pushes the pile towards him.

“I come bearing gifts,” she says.

“And how many giant spiders did you kill to bring me these?”

She laughs, perching herself on the edge of his desk. “I tried to avoid the death-defying stunts this time around and decided to rummage through my basement instead. They’re all instructional tomes, beginner’s magic. I thought they might be of some use to the apprentices.”

He takes the top one, leafing through the first few pages. Though the spine is cracked and worn from use, the book itself is relatively intact, save for ink underlining a few key phrases. Diagrams are interspersed every couple pages, detailing the proper hand motions and stances for… barriers. He spares a glance at the other titles, all related to preliminary defensive magic. _Clever._

“I take it you’ll accept no payment for these either, Champion?”

“Hawke, please,” she interjects, but this time the exasperation seems sincere. “I’m no Champion today. Just Hawke.”

“Hawke,” he grants, a smile appearing on his face unbidden in response to her own.

“I won’t let you pay me for hand-me-down books,” she says, standing as though the distance would discourage him from putting sovereigns in her hand. “Though if they prove valuable, please let me know. I’m sure I have more of the like collecting dust somewhere in the estate.”

“Could I interest you in some tea instead, then?”

There is something oddly satisfying in seeing the Champion caught off guard, at a loss for how to respond. She pauses, watching him, before settling back onto the desk’s corner, folding her hands in her lap.

“I’ll have something stronger, if you’ve got it.”

Meredith does not knock, several hours later, before she enters his office and demands that the Champion leave. Hawke, inebriated but still in charge of her faculties, blows a raspberry at the woman before turning back to Orsino and finishing her thought on redirecting ambient Fade energy. He fights back laughter as she rises, promises him better booze and discussion at a later date, and throws her arms excitedly around her Templar escort. Knight Captain Cullen pats her back in a stilted fashion before disentangling himself from her hold and guiding her out of the Gallows.

“Same time next week, First Enchanter?” Hawke calls.

Meredith glares at him. “Of course,” he replies.

* * *

The knock at his door jolts him awake, the quick movement sending a flash of pain down his spine, uncomfortably twisted in his position face-first in his paperwork. He gasps as the edge of a scroll cuts his cheek, shallow but stinging. He ignores it as he rises from his desk, trying to school his features into something less incensed at having been woken at such a late hour.

The door swings open.

No one is there.

The knock comes again from behind him, startling him once more. He does not flinch this time, instead turning slowly on his heel to meet his guest. He opens the wooden shutters on his window to reveal Hawke, perched on the sill, one hand pressing scrolls to her chest, the other clenching onto the stonework above the frame.

She smiles at him around another scroll, held between her teeth.

“Maker’s breath! Get inside!”

She puts up no resistance as he pulls her in by the wrist, landing more gracefully than he would have expected. She drops the scrolls to his carpet with less care, straightening and brushing her hair out of her face.

“Worried someone would see me creeping into the First Enchanter’s study at such a,” she pauses for effect, “ _scandalous_ hour?”

He is certainly unaffected by the low pitch of her voice and the joking smoulder she sends his way. Most definitely.

“I was more concerned with the Champion of Kirkwall falling to her untimely demise.”

“True. With the position outside your window, Meredith wouldn’t mince words trying to pin my splattered remains on the – what was it?” She gathers the scrolls once more and deposits them on his desk, “oh yes, the ‘ _savage baser instincts’_ of my favourite Circle mage. Would have been dreadful business.”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to assuage to sudden headache overtaking him. “You don’t even have your staff.”

“Preparing for failure is the same as expecting it,” she says with a flippant wave of her hand. “If I was prepared for a fight, I was inviting the possibility.”

“Is that truly your philosophy?”

She smiles at his disbelief. “Nope. I knew it wouldn’t fit through the window though.” She lifts the hem of her robes to pull a dagger from its wrap against her calf, twirling it in her grip. “I decided the best course of action would be to bring a knife to a theoretical sword fight.”

She frowns at his lack of responding grin, the dagger stilling in her hand and placed on his desk, teetering on the edge. “Are you alright?”

“Pardon?” Her polite worry never ceases to take him by surprise. She no doubt possesses more significant concerns than those of his wellbeing.

“You seem troubled. More so than usual, I mean. The continual subjugation and persecution of mages not withstanding.”

“If anything, I am plagued by your recklessness.”

“Ah, now it’s my turn to beg your pardon,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Care to elaborate?”

Orsino realizes that this conversation, one he has stumbled upon in haste, is not one he wishes to be a part of, but at the same time recognizes it to be a necessity. It _has_ been plaguing him as of late. It is the reason he did not sleep the night prior, and why he had passed out in his office earlier this evening.

“You repeatedly endanger yourself and your companions without thought for the consequences or proper preparation,” he says, gesturing to the dagger on his desk. “You rush into fights without adequate strategy, and in fact you seek out conflict and throw yourself in front of every perceived enemy in Kirkwall whether your charge is deserving or not. You’ve amassed more injuries than a small army, fret over the slightest wound on anyone else, and yet spare no thought as to your own safety. You scale the Gallows' wall here, tonight, with no reward for such a risk! Have you no care for your own life?”

He is not sure when he moved forward, but now he stands a foot away from her, hovering, _seething_. “Is that enough elaboration for you, Champion?”

“ _Orsino_ ,” she says, a warning, and his name – her first utterance of his name – is a blow in of itself. “My life is worth no more than any other, and you of all people know that I do what must be done, what no one else is even willing to do.”

“You act without thought,” he spits.

“Have my thoughtless actions saved lives?”

“At your own expense!” He throws his hands up, turning away from her.

“Have they or have they not saved lives?” She insists, grabbing his arm and whirling him around to face her again, the heat radiating from her palm barely holding a candle to the blaze behind her eyes.

She waits, her grip not loosening. She knows his answer.

“ _Yes,_ ” he grinds out.

“Then I shall do no less!”

They are both breathing heavily from shouting, leaned forward in their intensity of emotion, the soft puffs of her exhales tingling the exposed flesh of his neck above his collar, the heavy fabric of his robes suddenly stifling. Her hair, perpetually out of sorts, rustles with his breath. She smells of dirt and sweat and brine.

“You’re bleeding,” she says, and there is no trace of ire in her voice, only tender unease.

“What?”

“Your cheek,” she clarifies, her hand – the one not clutching his arm, as that one seems intent on staying put – rises to point to the offending injury.

“A paper cut,” he dismisses.

She rolls her eyes. “Does it hurt at all?”

“This is exactly what I was saying earlier, you know.” He cannot help but mirror the smile tugging at her lips. He wonders at what point glancing becomes staring, as he may very well be staring at her mouth now, painted the same dark red as the paint over her nose, as audacious and bold as the day they first met.

She pokes his cheek. It stings.

“What was that for?”

“Let me coddle you a little, you grumpy old man,” she laughs. He feels an acute sense of loss as she moves away to his desk and picks up one of her many delivered scrolls. “Now, to business: you should read this one tonight and burn it afterwards. It’s got the locations of the next two meetings for that new mage insurgent group, and Maker knows Meredith would have a field day flaying those poor teenagers alive.

“This one is just as urgent, with the names of the mages expected to be attending those meetings. I wouldn’t have written it down at all, but I didn’t have time to memorize it on my way here.

“This one is, well, it’s an express copy of the newest chapter of Hard in Hightown, just in case you wanted exclusive access to it before it’s published. Varric doesn’t know I’m giving you this. Don’t tell him. Or do. He’ll probably get a kick out of you reading his stories in the first place.

“And this one is a letter to you, burned at your discretion, from a mage named Feynriel, detailing what he has discovered about the dreamers in Tevinter. Bright young man. I helped him out of Kirkwall a little while back, and since I’ve mentioned you in our correspondence, he’s been dying to ask you some questions. I’ll deliver the reply, should you find the time to answer it.”

He stares at her for a moment, watching her bounce expectantly on her heels. Her hair is longer now, he notes, an inch or two short of brushing her shoulders. He’s struck by the urge to tuck it behind her ear.

“How did you get all of this?”

“My signature wily, wily ways. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“It is,” he struggles to put his gratitude into words as he moves to stand next to her, opening the first scroll and committing the rendezvous points to memory. “More than I can ask of you in good conscience, Champion. Surely this information is obtained at a great threat to your life.”

Hawke sighs, bumping his elbow with her own. “Correct me if I’m mistaken, but we just went over this.”

“Is it so wrong for me to worry over your safety?”

She stiffens at his side, and he turns from the scroll to see her watching him, blue eyes alight with something he cannot identify. It is not her telltale heat, her passion and ardency, her anger at injustice, nor her infectious joy, all of which he has grown quite accustomed to.

“It’s not unwelcome. Just unexpected.” She shrugs, deliberately nonchalant.

“How could it be unexpected with all that you have done?” The _for me, for all of us_ goes unspoken.

“I am quite the valuable asset, yes.”

“You misunderstand me,” he begins, but she does not allow him to continue.

“Purposefully,” she admits, turning to face him fully. There is a nervous air to her and she opens and closes her mouth twice before sighing, the puff of air sending her bangs askew. “I can’t have you worrying over me, because then it’s just another thing _I_ have to worry about. If you start dredging up these grand notions of heroism and trying to save me, I’ll have to keep an eye on you too.”

“If you can be a hero, I don’t see why I should be denied the opportunity.” Her smile is pleasant, he notices, not for the first time. It is not her flirtatious smirk or tight-lipped formality, but a slight parting of her lips, something like disbelief and affable surprise colouring her expression.

“I’d prefer you stayed out of the line of fire as much as possible,” she says. She cannot meet his eyes. Her hands fidget oddly at her sides, torn between reaching for him and curling into fists. It is the softest, the most vulnerable has ever seen her.

“That’s rather _im_ possible, given my position as Meredith’s first and foremost dissenter.”

“Yes, but,” she runs a hand through her hair. “That I can’t protect you from.” It is bizarre to see her so out of her element, frantic in her movements and tripping over her tongue. “Some things I can.”

“I’m quite capable of handling myself, Champion.”

“Naturally,” she says, charming him with another gracious smile. “It’s only just, well – I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am quite fond of you, First Enchanter.”

The declaration is altogether harmless, neutral, but for whatever reason it sends his heart racing. He snaps his fingers, a dash of fire spurting from them and turning the scroll to ashes. He blows out the flame with a low whistle, a flair for dramatics that he often indulges in her presence.

“You are, now, are you?”

“I most certainly am. In fact, I can prove it.”

He is given no time to dispute it further. Her hands cup his cheeks and her lips press against his with disarming fervour, body flush against him and pinning him to the edge of the desk. He responds instinctually, hands flying up to grip her waist and pull her closer, one settling on her hip and the other between her shoulder blades, eliminating whatever space remained between them. Her mouth tastes of cinnamon and salt, and as he takes her lower lip between his teeth, blood.

Her dagger falls, its landing cushioned by the carpet beneath.

* * *

The palpable tension in the air is even more stifling at this particular meeting, Meredith’s sporadic and not at all subtle glances at him more frequent than usual. Her crystalline irises have become a familiar shade, but on her they are marred with astute calculation. They carry a promise of retribution to come, but one Orsino cannot fully comprehend when he is so reminded of the same blue, framed with laughter lines and glinting with a mischievous warmth. He has refused the seat opposite her as always, and even her growing paranoia does not excuse the suspicion she casts upon him now, the two of them more than a respectable distance apart and his staff abandoned in the other room.

That is the root of the mage _problem_ though, isn’t it? He requires no weaponry to pose a threat to the ordinary citizens of Kirkwall. His mere existence signifies his crime.

“Something on my face, Knight Commander?”

Either to Meredith’s credit or her utter lack of tact, she shows no shame for her furtive glances. “As a matter of fact, yes. Across your nose.”

Meredith is a great many things, most of which he cannot describe in polite company, but immature is not one of them. Nevertheless, he half-suspects the comment to be a ploy to have him play the fool, a child’s trick to end with her shrill laughter and an accompanying diatribe of _gullible, stupid mage._

But no, Meredith speaks the truth. His fingertips come back stained with a dash of red paint. He succeeds in restraining the tender smile pulling at his lips, but only just.

It is a funny thing, to watch realization settle in the lines above the Knight Commander’s brow, and to so quickly have it turn to disdain.

The sand stills in her hour glass, marking the end of their quotidian meeting.

“Knight Commander,” he nods. He saunters – honest to Maker _saunters_ – out of her office and across the hall, falling into his own chair with a sense of triumph.

* * *

 “Are you wearing reading glasses?”

“Yes,” Hawke answers without a trace of shame, looking up from her tome to peer at him over the lenses’ edge. “The last time I got knocked over the head seems to have jostled some things permanently. My vision’s gone a bit fuzzy, up close.” She lifts the spectacles off her face and cradles them in her hands, offering them to him for inspection. “Varric recommended these.”

Odd patches of light dance around his room as Orsino holds the glasses up to the firelight.

“It seems a little unfair,” she chuckles, “that I need reading glasses while your eyes are as sharp as ever.”

He raises his head, ready with a quip about their difference in age, but it is lost at the sudden vulnerability in her eyes. He moves from his chair, sitting next to her on his bed. He drapes an arm over her shoulders, and she leans into it, the fingers that were fiddling with the corners of her book taking the glasses from him with a delicate touch.

“I didn’t even see the blow coming,” she whispers, sounding almost ashamed.

“Battle is unpredictable,” he says, brushing a piece of hair away from her temple.

“It was an oversight,” she spits, hands clenching and leaving fingerprints on the lenses. “Stupid.” He feels the tightness of her jaw against his collarbone, her breath warm and uneven on his neck as she huffs.

“Everyone makes a mistake once in a while.”

“I don’t.”

He pulls back, quirking a brow at her. She blushes at his disbelief, a light dusting of pink on her cheeks, but it is soon replaced with her self-directed anger. “I don’t make mistakes. I can’t.”

He waits for her to continue. She does not, only moving closer to him and resettling in the crook of his shoulder, curled on her side against him.  
  
He wonders what is that she fears – that her mistakes, considering her circumstances, can have consequences direr than that of the average man, or that if she is capable of mistakes, that every choice she has made can be called into question. Perhaps she fears fragility, being invincible and infallible a reality to her for so long that the alternative is foreign.  
  
Perhaps she simply fears death.

Though her breathing has become an even rhythm against his sternum, her knuckles remain white as they clench the glasses in her fist. Any more pressure and she’ll warp the frames.

He extracts them from her grip one finger at a time, cleaning the lenses on his robes before shifting away, sliding them onto the bridge of her nose.  
  
“I think I’ll get a pair myself,” he says. “I doubt my eyesight is what it used to be.”

“Oh, I’d like to see that,” she smiles. “They’d look fetching on you.”

“You think?”

“Oh yes, they’d just scream wizened old mage, very intelligent, very sage in his years,” she teases.  
  
She makes a show of shrieking and sputtering as he pushes her off the bed, her glasses askew as she grins up at him from the floor.

* * *

“Doesn’t it just make you sick?”

It’s an odd thing to say when she lays bare in his arms, legs tangled in his silken red sheets, one of the few luxuries his position allows. Hawke’s lips brush against his sternum as she speaks, her fingers lazily drawing patterns onto his hipbone.  
  
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Orsino says, adjusting them so that her head lay on his shoulder.

“The blood magic,” she laments, craning her neck to meet his eyes. “Can’t you feel the spoil of it in the air, remnants of the magisters and slavers of old? The Fade is rotten with it here. I don’t know how you stand it.”  
  
“One grows used to the Gallows and its many idiosyncrasies,” he mumbles, eyelids still heavy with sleep. Beams of moonlight stain his wall, leaking in between the fissures of his drapery.

Hawke shakes her head, her hair tickling his chin. “All of Kirkwall is tainted with it. I can’t even go into the foundries anymore without – “

She stops herself, going rigid in his embrace, the air souring with the sulphur and brimstone of a pull at the Veil. She extricates herself from him and nearly topples off the bed, hand flying out to catch the headboard and eyes glazed over with something he cannot identify.

Orsino is awake now, sitting upright and feeling the nighttime chill on his chest, sheets pooled at his waist.

He had heard stories of the Champion, the garden variety tavern tales detailing her crushing victories and the much less frequent defeats, but little drink or song is ever spared for her history, her Ferelden upbringing and her familial ties. There was clamouring for more information, but the Hanged Man’s resident expert on Hawke left her private life shrouded in mystery, perhaps at her request.

However, some events trickle into public knowledge independent of mouthy dwarves. Her sister’s death in escaping Lothering and her brother’s induction into the Grey Wardens, to name a few. Her mother’s murder at the hands of an warped blood mage, in contrast, had gained much less notoriety.

He had assumed at the start of their amicable acquaintance that they would not reach a point at which she would divulge such things. It was a grievous miscalculation; their relationship had progressed in ways he would have previously relegated to insouciant dreams and flights of fancy. In addition, it meant he had not prepared himself to discuss the death of Leandra Hawke.

Or rather, he never accounted _for_ Hawke in his deliberation over the incident. Over Quentin.

“Hawke?”

Her gaze flickers up from the middle distance to take him in, disordered silver hair and gleaming eyes, pallid skin and thin fingers reaching out towards her.

She recoils from his touch by turning away and beginning to dress, a forced nonchalance in her movements as she slides leisurely into her boots and stays fixated on the task. Orsino allows her the physical and figurative space she desires.

 _Too dangerous_ , he had deemed Quentin’s work. _It threatens everything we are striving towards._

Peculiar. Peculiar that the carnage, the spilling of blood itself, had not been the deterrent to Orsino’s support.

Hawke stands silhouetted in the moonlight, skin pale in the stray beams’ dalliances over the column of her neck and the planes of her cheekbones.

“I shouldn’t have stayed this long,” she says, hand scratching at the back of her neck. “Maker knows what kind of trouble you would be in if I walked out of here in the morning. I’ll be back the day after next.” Her words come out in a stilted rush. Her jaw is tight as she clambers back onto the mattress, her eyes unfocused as she presses a chaste kiss to the corner of his lips.

He should stop her, urge her to speak her mind.

She parts the curtains and swings a leg out his window, disappearing into the night below.

* * *

He narrowly dodges the beam of ice flung his way, the tip of it grazing his ear and sending a chill through his blood. It paralyzes him, and a fresh wave of cold settles as Hawke casts a barrier over him. Her armor is singed and warped at her side, the metal no doubt cutting into her flesh, but she marches forward regardless. She raises her hands, pleading.

“We don’t want to hurt you, Elias. We can help, please, if you’ll just – “

“No!” The boy spits at her, tears streaming down his ruddy cheeks. “I won’t go back there! You can’t make me!”

“Elias, we don’t – “

“Shut up!” He flings another wreathe of fire at her, one she dives to avoid. “Shut up! They treat us like we’re filth. Like we’re _dirt_!” Hawke casts a barrier in front of herself, palms facing the boy as he punctuates each shout with another bolt of ice. “I’ll never go back!”

Orsino regains power of his limbs just as Elias pulls the dagger from his robes, but he is too late. Blood courses from the boy’s wrist, and the cave is filled with his shrieks as his skin ripples into ridges of grey tissue, bone-like protrusions darting out of his spine and forearms. He falls to his knees, clawed hands tearing at the melting flesh of his face. He screams and screams and screams, and Orsino watches a milky white bleed into his eyes, the pinprick of his pupils lost to oblivion. The screaming stops.

He cries silent tears as the abomination writhes mid-air, Hawke’s prison crushing its deformed hide and breaking its bone, his flames searing its flesh. This is what they are driven to. This is what _they_ have cultivated.

The creature is dropped to the ground in a mass of blood and ash. Within it, Orsino spies the glint of a ring. A gift from the boy’s estranged mother, years and years ago.  
  
“Fuck,” Hawke breathes, shaking her head. She spins on her heel, a growl tearing from her chest as she kicks a stone against the cave wall. “Fuck!” A boulder across the cavern shatters into dust and debris as her arm shoots out, another portion of the wall caving in as she clenches her fist and pulls it to her chest. “Fucking hell!”

Orsino watches her wreak havoc on their surroundings, watches rocks collide and disintegrate under her machinations. She howls in agony, tears at the veil as viciously as she would any enemy, but it will achieve nothing. He has learned over time that no amount of damage can assuage the guilt. Destruction cannot bring back what has been lost.

He approaches her cautiously, slow in step but by no means stealthy. His hands are out ahead of him, and she puts up no resistance as they grip her wrists, pulling her towards him, grounding her in reality.

“I’m sorry.”

She scoffs. “Me too. Not that it fucking matters though.” A flutter of static shock travels through his hands, her mana flaring. “None of it does. If I have to watch another kid die, another kid we can’t save, I don’t – I don’t know.  
  
“What do they do to them in there? They’re killing innocents! Children! They’re driving them to – to this! They never stand a chance! Elias,” she looks at what remains of him, lips curling into a snarl. “He was dead before he made it out of Kirkwall. He had a death sentence on his head from the moment he was born. How do you fight against that? How do we save them from themselves? How – how can,” she heaves a breath, tears welling her eyes. “ _Fuck._ How can we look at that and say we aren’t monsters?”

She hangs her head, trembling. “How do you keep doing it?” Her voice breaks, and she buries her head in his shoulder, her arms wrapped too tight around his waist.

He rests his chin atop her head, and they cry. They hold each other in the pitch black of the cave until her sobs melt into heaving breaths, until the anger seeps out of her, until his hands stop shaking as he smooths down her hair. Elias’s blood pools at their feet. They leave a pair of red footprints in their wake, stepping out into the night to relive the same day over, and over, and over again.

* * *

She sits in his windowsill, legs dangling over the tumultuous waves below. Thunder cracks overhead, the open shutters letting misted rain and the stench of salt into his room. Lightning flashes not too far off from the tower’s spire, illuminating her silhouette. Stripped from her armour and in nothing but ragged trousers and a moth-eaten undershirt, the spray of water plastering loose hair against the nape of her neck, she gives the image of a travel-worn vagrant more so than a noble warrior. She could afford the finest linens, could ask for them free of charge if she so desired, and yet she chooses these.

She turns her head as he clears his throat, the water caked on her skin reflecting the moonlight, almost putting her aglow. Her eyes, plagued by dark circles and shot through with blood at the corners, warm as she takes him in. She is less harried, if only for a moment.

He raises a brow at her, placing the scrolls in his arms upon his desk. “Have you ever considered knocking? Or using the door for that matter?”

“No. Better to keep you on your toes.” She turns back to the rain as he settles at his desk, lighting the candle with the snap of his fingers. Her boots, muddy and beaten, lay discarded on the floor. The hint of a larger scar, a gash down the left side of her back, peeks out from her collar.

“Seven years,” Hawke says, sounding out the syllables. “I’ve lived in this shithole for seven years, and I’ve never just sat and watched the rain before.”

He places his reading glasses on, watching her profile as she twists, back against the side of the frame and knees pulled to her chest. She balances precariously on the ledge. "Is it everything you hoped?” He asks.

She smiles, but there’s something hollow about it, her lip quirking but the motion not quite reaching her eyes. Another flash of lightning casts shadows across the lines of her face, the softness of her cheeks lost to the harsh planes of light.  

“Yes,” she says, once the silence has stretched on too long. “Really instills the fear of the Maker in you.”

Orsino can fall into it, if he lets himself. The simple repartee that serves as a welcome distraction from everything bearing down on them, a world away from the world where he can listen for hours as she recalls the most minute and insignificant parts of her day, and she can do the same in turn. It would be so easy to fall into their familiar blissful ignorance, but more and more often he has the sinking feeling that days like this are numbered, that they cannot afford things left unsaid.

He could just ask her how her day was, and let them forget everything else. It would be so easy.  
  
“What’s bothering you?” He asks, rising from his desk. Hawke glances at him, her hand reaching out for him without thought. He walks over and laces their fingers together, standing behind her as they watch the rain.

“I can’t imagine another seven years here,” she says, her head lolling back to meet his eyes.  
  
“Are you planning to leave?”

“I have some very appealing incentives to stick around.” She nudges him with her elbow, but there’s no spirit to it.

“Hawke,” he says.

“I,” she breaks off, looking out at the water once more. It's miles and miles away, but perhaps if she squints, she can make out the shores of Amaranthine. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to.” She squeezes his hand, and he steps forward so that she leans against his torso. “My entire life is here, and beyond that – well, I’m not sure how to phrase it. There’s just so much left to do. Things I couldn’t bare to leave unfinished.”

“You plan to see Kirkwall through to the bitter end?”  
  
She laughs – a full, genuine laugh – and cranes her neck to press a kiss to his cheek. “Yes, something like that.”

* * *

Hawke is hunched as she approaches the gates, alone, knuckles white around her staff.  
  
“I couldn’t do it,” she says. “He was my friend. I’m sorry.”

Whether she is apologizing for his loss or her inaction, he doesn’t know, but he nods. She takes his outstretched hand, fingers intertwining in a way that is second nature to them now. Her grip is too tight, still white-knuckled and shaking, but she remains standing. He intends to keep it that way.

“Everything’s fucked,” she sighs.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“The Grand Cleric dead, the Templars beyond reason, the right of annulment bearing down, and – and to top things off, now we’ll have an Exalted March from Starkhaven on our hands!” She lets out a hysterical bark of laughter, still looking ahead of them.  
  
“We won’t live to see it.” He hates himself for saying it aloud, for confirming what they both know to be true. There is no future where the Templars do not slaughter them in droves, where they do not die choking on their own blood with a blade twisted in their guts.

She hiccups, head resting on his shoulder. “Well, not with that attitude.” Her voice cracks on the last word.

“Hawke,” he breathes, turning towards her, pressing his forehead to hers. He breathes her in, sweat and grime and metal, salt and earth. There is no levity to be found nor comfort to be taken, not in the pulse in her wrist or the lilt of her voice. Her hand slides between them to rest on his chest, his heartbeat in time with her own.  
  
“I know,” she says. A shudder wracks her body, lips brushing against his. “I know.”

* * *

Everything is red, a nauseating, pulsating red, save for the points of her irises, the colour of the morning sky and the waves as they crash against the shore, cool yet ineffably warm, breathtaking whether framed by glass or lightning or midday sun. Existence comes together in overlapping collision, too plentiful to keep track of, too rich to isolate. The drag of her lips against his collar bone. The weight of her in his lap as they read before the fire. The press of her forehead against his own. The echo of her laughter across the walls of his study.

The warmth of her hand over his heart.

The red swallows her whole, and there is nothing left of him to protest.

* * *

_First Enchanter,_

_May I be the first to commend you two on a complete lack of subtlety? Everyone from the Gallows to the Black Emporium knows what you and Hawke get up to in those clandestine nighttime meetings, especially myself, since Hawke’s a talkative drunk and spares no detail. You’re spry for an older gentleman. Congratulations._

_I can say with an utmost sincerity that I am happy for the both of you despite my earlier reservations, which I assure you were not well received. Our mutual lady friend was frighteningly eager to defend your honour in a duel, but in the interest of my own safety I talked her down to a friendly game of Wicked Grace. She can’t bluff to save her own skin, and I trust you to exploit that weakness accordingly._

_Gambling antics aside, however, Hawke can take care of herself. She certainly doesn’t need me to rough up any idiot stupid enough to lay a hand on her, and you’re no stranger to her prowess on the battlefield._

_A quick aside: She says hi. She’s half-asleep and lounging on my couch right now, under the impression that I’m writing a letter to Anders. I’m sure if she knew I was writing to you, she would extend the same courtesy. Or something much more bawdy and toe-curling._

_She would also probably kick my ass if she knew_ what _I was writing, but it needs to be said, and because fate is a cruel and unforgiving mistress, there’s no one else left to say it. Hawke has lost everyone important to her. For everything that has gone right for her in the past six years, there are a dozen other things that have gone horribly wrong, and she has the scars to prove it. The specifics aren’t mine to share, but I’d wager you have an inkling of the atrocities she’s made it through._

_Don’t tread carefully or anything like that, but do us all a favour and try to stay in the land of the living.  
_

_Best of luck,_

_Varric Tethras_

_P.S. She’s gushing about how witty you are. And struggling to find the exact word to describe the colour of your eyes. And marvelling at your manipulation of Circle politics. “I think he can do it, Varric. If anyone can change things, it’s us.”_  
  
_Don’t let her down, alright?_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I went back and added a couple more drabbles just because the pacing didn't feel right, hope it flows better now. Any feedback is much appreciated.


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